Last Night
The Horror

 Pink Spiders have a hot pink leopard-print drumset that looks like a little girl’s toy.

 The bass player, Jon Decious, is a perfect lovechild of Johnny Whitney and Ric Ocasek. Coincidentally (or not) Ric Ocasek produced their record Teenage Graffiti.

That’s the lovechild in the middle.

 The Pink Spiders got really mad at the crowd, who wasn’t really into them. At one point, they said, “Do you guys even have a pulse?”

 They also asked if either the Lashes or the Boss Martians were in the audience. They weren’t.

 They had a chubby band member who isn’t in any of their band pics. Hired gun?

 At one point during their very long set, I realized I’d been thinking about other things for the previous ten minutes or so, including ice cream and possible reasons why there were so many mohawk/stud punks at the show. (I eventually concluded that they just don’t have anywhere else to go.)

 The Horrorpops have backup dancers that rarely sing backup vocals. They were dressed as dead brides. Their dances were repetitive.Sorry about the crappy pic.

 The Horrorpops also have a stand-up bass that appears to be covered in pinup girl tattoos and whatnot. When the loaders put this bass on stage before the band came on, the crowd cheered.

 The singer and stand-up bass player, Patricia Day, said this: “Wow, I can’t believe this. Four hours ago, we were stranded at a mechanic’s, trying to get our van fixed. Now we’re here, playing the show! Classic Horrorpops!” (My companion noted that their van problem was probably easily solved by their thousands of dollars.)

 When the band started playing, I noticed a very loud clicking sound. It sounded like a loud click-track, like when you are learning to play drums. At first, I thought it was the backup dancers, with those little clamshell instruments. Then, I thought it was them wearing tap shoes. But it turned out to just be the stand-up bass. The clicking made me physically nauseous.

 The Pink Spiders have the largest merch-booth banner of all time. None of the other bands had merch booth banners.

A few years ago when I was touring with my crappy punk band(name with held to protect the guilty), we were using our day of at one of those by the hour practice rooms in downtown LA. As we were loading our gear in, a large SUV with trailer pulls up, and out pop some rather expensively cut, girl panted band members. As they stood around outside waiting to check in, I introduced my self and asked how their tour was going. I don't think a single one of them even looked my way. one guy mumbled 'yeah, we're, like, the pink spiders',before turning back around. Later that afternoon, I heard them very audibly bitching about the size a quality of the practice room-they had the largest, priciest room in the joint. Diva is as Diva does I suppose. Still, Im jealous that they got to work with Ocasek.

So I'm back from the show. I actually thought it wasn't bad. Wasn't great, but wasn't bad. The Pink Spiders' bass player (who one guy at our show called "Wedding Singer" because of the haircut) pulled the same shit: "Does anyone know what it's like to fuck a corpse? (Pause) Playing for you guys." What a dick. The drummer looks like the result of hot sex between the Hanson Brothers (from "Slapshot"), David Fricke and a simian.

The band has some catchy songs. But they wear thin after a while. And the skinny jeans are ridiculous.

HorrorPops was solid but unspectacular. Their schtick is a decent schtick; I've seen better and worse. The songs sounded pretty good, and the dancers are a cool touch.

No offense, Spool, but if you don't recognize the click of the stand-up bass that's common at almost every rockabilly show, perhaps you're not the best guy to be critiquing a rockabilly show. I'm not trying to slam you, I'm just sayin'.

(Note to Grandy: Nice sarcasm, editor, but I think you missed the point. There is nothing cutting about Dan's post. He was merely pointing out that the click is common. But I guess *you* burned *him*.)

I didn't read Dan's comment as a burn, either, Eric. It's true, I don't go to many rockabilly/psychobilly shows, and I didn't mention that in the post. But that doesn't mean I think the entire genre is a bust, just this particular band.

Sometimes, I like to go check something out that I haven't seen before. If that's a crime, I'll start watching the same five movies over and over and reading Catcher in the Rye exclusively.

I also went to Super Furry Animals last night, and I didn't understand that, either. I like to go to shows where I have no idea what anything is going to be like. Then the entire experience is an adventure.